5.29.2010

HONOLULU — The $48-a-plate shark fin has been a favorite dish to celebrate 80th birthdays and fete out of town VIPs since Vienna Hou's Chinese restaurant opened 25 years ago.

But Kirin Restaurant customers won't be dining in that style starting July 1, 2011, when Hawaii becomes the first state in the nation to ban the possession of shark fins. The state is attempting to help prevent the overfishing and extinction of sharks around the world.

"Something will be missing," said Hou, who grew up watching her father sell shark fin as part of his seafood trading business in Hong Kong. "Decent Chinese restaurants — they all serve shark fin."

Gov. Linda Lingle on Friday signed a bill prohibiting the possession, sale or distribution of shark fins. The bill passed the state House and Senate with broad support earlier this year.

The legislation generated some grumbling in Hawaii's sizable Chinese community — more than 13 percent of the state population is Chinese or part Chinese. Many consider shark fin a delicacy and important part of Chinese culture.

The ban also comes as the tourism-dependent state expects a surge in affluent Chinese visitors.

Restaurateurs say about a dozen establishments in Hawaii serve shark fin, which doesn't taste like much by itself. The flavor in shark fin dishes comes from the ingredients it's cooked with, either the rich sauce it's served with on a plate or the savory pork and chicken base in shark fin soup.

Some people eat it for the supposed health benefits, claiming that it's good for bones, kidneys and lungs and helps treat cancer. Shark fin is also considered a status symbol in high-end restaurants, a dish to impress or lavishly treat guests. At Kirin, on a busy street near the University of Hawaii, one soup serving is $17.

In Hong Kong, high end restaurants can charge $1,000 for premium shark fin.

"I don't think you should say it should be illegal to have shark fin," said Johnson Choi, president of the Hong Kong China Hawaii Chamber of Commerce. "Shark fins are part of food culture — Chinese have had food culture for over 5,000 years."

Environmentalists say the tradition is leading to a dangerous depletion of sharks worldwide.

A report last year by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimates 32 percent of open ocean shark species are in danger of becoming extinct primarily because of overfishing.

Hawaii's lawmakers heard testimony that sharks are being killed for their fins at a rate of 89 million per year.

"It's not a local issue. It's an international issue," said Sen. Clayton Hee, D-Kahuku-Kaneohe, the sponsor of the Hawaii bill.

Restaurants serving fins will have until next July to run through their inventory. After that, those caught with fin will have to pay a fine between $5,000 to $15,000 for a first offense. A third offense would result in a fine between $35,000 to $50,000 and up to a year in prison.

It's designed to go a step further than the previous law which aimed to control shark finning — the act of cutting fins off sharks at sea and dumping their carcasses in the ocean — by banning the landing of shark fins at Hawaii ports.

Shark conservation activists say they hope the law inspires other states and the federal government to follow suit.

"This is a landmark bill," said Marie Levine, the founder and executive director of the Shark Research Institute in Princeton, N.J. "This is enormously important for the conservation of sharks."

Conservation efforts suffered a major setback earlier this year when an effort to protect six shark species under the 175-nation Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, failed in March.

Hee, who is of Chinese and Native Hawaiian descent, rejected the argument that shark fins shouldn't be banned because they're an important part of Chinese culture. He argued the food is only eaten by an elite few at Chinese restaurants.

"It's a tradition of serving shark fin to those who could most afford it. It's an indulgent activity," Hee said.

In contrast, he noted sharks are deeply ingrained in Hawaiian culture as ancestral gods, or aumakua, and are featured prominently in ancient legends.

The law's power may be primarily symbolic given Hawaii is a small market for shark fin, especially compared to Hong Kong. The IUCN estimates Hong Kong handles at least 50 percent and perhaps 80 percent of the world's shark fin trade.

Some restaurant managers — both inside and outside of the tourist mecca of Waikiki — said their biggest eaters of shark fin are Japanese tourists who like to order the dish because it's three to four times cheaper here than back home.

"I doubt it very much that people will be very disappointed," said David Chui, manager of Legends Seafood Restaurant.

Carroll Cox, president of the Hawaii-based group EnviroWatch, hopes the governor makes enforcement a high priority. Other countries will also have to commit to limit the shark fin trade for any restrictions to have an effect, he said.

"People learn to circumvent the law, especially when you have a product that's expensive and in demand," said Cox.

About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

A large rotating cyclone of cold water is pushing into the southern body of the Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current and now appears likely to destabilize or even sever the current and the oil it contains from its connection to Florida, scientists said today.

While the BP PLC oil spill has begun to enter the current, a powerful stream that could transport a small part of the slick to the Florida Keys in about a week, there are also signs that less oil -- at least on the surface -- has taken the turn south that was feared.

Over the past weeks, small ocean flows spinning off the body of the Loop Current, known as cyclones or eddies, have pushed and prodded the Gulf slick. In particular, one counterclockwise eddy east of the oil's main body has determinedly dragged the crude toward the main current, resulting in its current entrainment (Greenwire, May 18).

However, imagery today has shown that, while filaments of oil have escaped into the current, "the main pool of oil is remaining up there in the eddy" and not progressing south, said Mitch Roffer, an oceanographer at the scientific consulting firm ROFFS.

More importantly, Roffer said, satellite shots this morning showed that an eddy farther south along the Florida coast is expanding in size and strength. That cyclone appears likely to destabilize or even sever the Loop Current, greatly reducing the oil threat to the Florida Keys and beyond, he said.

"If it forms, it's going to pull a lot of the oil away from Florida," Roffer said. There are no guarantees, he added, "but it looks very likely that this is forming."

Such a beheading is common to the current, which becomes more unstable as it pushes deeper into the Gulf of Mexico. Typically, a forceful counterclockwise cyclone near southwest Florida "punches through the Loop Current," severing the flow from its connection to the Atlantic, said Nan Walker, the director of the Earth Scan Lab at Louisiana State University's School of the Coast and Environment.

"It looks like that kind of scenario is imminent," Walker said.

After a severing, the warm rotating water of the Loop Current's head -- called a "ring" -- begins to flow west toward Texas. But the ring can dawdle, too, and sometimes reattaches with the main current. Such fluctuations defy forecasting and remain an active area of research (Greenwire, May 5).

"At this stage, it's a watch and waiting game," Walker said.

Loop rings tend to survive for about six months as they drift toward Texas, said Frank Muller-Karger, a professor of biological oceanography at the University of South Florida. Scientists have little idea how much oil could be captured by such a ring and pulled westward.

Even if the large southeastern eddy does not sever the current, it could capture oil that would have otherwise made its way to the Florida Keys, said Villy Kourafalou, a Gulf of Mexico modeler at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science.

'Impossible to predict'

It is too soon for East Coast residents to breathe a sigh of relief, however. Oil is still bobbing 120 miles off Tampa's coast, captured in the northern eddy, and before the Loop Current expires -- if it does -- it could still surge north and entrain more of the oil, Walker said. Or it could be caught in a ring and flow westward.

The oil tendrils -- which federal officials have called a "sheen" -- are extremely visible on satellite imagery, suggesting to Walker that there is heavier oil present in the northern eddy than has been suggested. The government may be employing some "wishful thinking" when they call it a sheen, she said.

Also, there is little certainty about how much oil has been captured by the Loop Current in deeper waters. Since much of the oil has been broken up by dispersants and is unlikely to reach the surface, it will tend to spread sideways through the Gulf, Muller-Karger said.

"Just the same we see at the surface, where the oil is being entrained into the Loop Current, I can imagine that the same thing is happening at depth, that oil is being entrained and moving around and spreading with these currents," he said. "Now what the impact is? It's impossible to predict."

"Based on the size of the plume and the estimates that we're hearing of what is being injected at the bottom, this is a very large problem," Muller-Karger added.

The deep ocean is not a complete unknown, and oceanographers are working with the government to model how the oil may be spreading, Kourafalou said.

"We know that there are counterflows and counter-rotating eddies ... and we know that circulation is much slower," she said. "Some data sets exist and have allowed the study of basic underlying dynamics. What does not exist is a comprehensive, sustained, observational system."

While the Loop Current may be headed toward a severing, that will not stop oil from slowly spreading across the Gulf, especially when the hurricanes begin to hit, Walker said. Some of the oil is almost certain to affect countries like Cuba and Mexico, Muller-Karger added.

"This is a problem," he said, "that we'll have to deal with for years, as opposed to months."

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2010/05/20/20greenwire-loop-current-destabilizes-lowering-gulf-oil-sp-23004.htmlAbout Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

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About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

MAY 20, 2010GULF OF MEXICO - Aerial view of oil being burned from the Deepwater Horizon/BP incident, May 19, 2010. Favorable weather conditions allowed burns to total more than nine hours. The burns are part of an effort to reduce the amount of oil in the water and are part of the joint federal, state and BP effort to aid in preventing the spread of oil following the April 20 explosion on the mobile offshore drilling unit, Deepwater Horizon. U.S Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer John Kepsimelis.

GULF OF MEXICO - Aerial view of oil being burned from the Deepwater Horizon/BP incident, May 19, 2010. Favorable weather conditions allowed burns to total more than nine hours. The burns are part of an effort to reduce the amount of oil in the water and are part of the joint federal, state and BP effort to aid in preventing the spread of oil following the April 20 explosion on the mobile offshore drilling unit, Deepwater Horizon. U.S Coast Guard photo by Chief Petty Officer John Kepsimelis.

About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

5.18.2010

The Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will conduct shoreline surveys in Key West, Florida, Tuesday after tar balls were found on a beach there, officials said.

The Coast Guard said in a statement it responded to the Florida Park Service report of 20 tar balls on the beach at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park about 5:15 p.m. Monday.

"Park rangers conducted a shoreline survey of Fort Zachary Taylor and the adjacent Navy beach at Truman Annex and recovered the tar balls at a rate of nearly three tar balls an hour throughout the day, with the heaviest concentration found at high tide," the Coast Guard statement said.

Samples of the tar balls were sent to a laboratory for analysis to determine their origin. An aerial search of the area with a pollution investigator is also planned for Tuesday.

Although the source of the tar balls was unclear Tuesday, they could be an ominous sign that oil from a massive spill into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana has spread south and east.

Meteorologist Jeff Masters, in a blog posted Monday night on the Weather Underground website, said satellite imagery has confirmed that "a substantial tongue of oil" from the spill has entered the Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current. The current flows through the Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico, then northward, where it loops southeast just south of the Florida Keys and travels to the west side of the western Bahamas, he said.

However, whether or not the oil is actually in that current is the subject of debate. In a briefing Monday, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Mary Landry told reporters that while some oil sheen was migrating toward the current, there was no oil in it.

"There's a very small stream of oil that has a very light sheen that is getting close to the Loop Current," NOAA administrator Jane Lubchenco told PBS' "NewsHour" on Monday. "It's likely that at some point it will be entrained by the Loop Current."

However, if the oil enters the current, it would take an estimated nine to 12 days to reach Florida, she said. Along the way, it would also become "highly diluted" and undergo natural weathering. "Any oil that would be reaching (the) Florida Strait might be in the form of tarballs, for example, and whether it ever comes ashore or not would be a function of onshore winds."

Masters said that portions of the Loop Current travel at about 4 mph, meaning the oil could take four to five days to reach Florida.

However, neither of those time frames would explain the tar balls found on the Keys Monday. Researchers say it's unlikely, although not impossible, that the tar balls are from the Gulf oil spill.

About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

5.13.2010

WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama on Wednesday asked Congress for at least 129 million dollars in new emergency funding to cope with wide-ranging fallout from the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

"I will spare no effort to clean up whatever damage has been caused, assist those whose livelihoods have been affected by this spill, and restore the Gulf coast," Obama said in a letter to House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi, on requesting the budget amendments, released by the White House.

Among the requests were at least 100 million dollars for the Coast Guard. The money would be taken from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, under the US president's plan.

Additionally, Obama asked for 29 million dollars for the Interior Department "for additional inspections, enforcement, studies, and other activities that are outside of those recoverable from responsible parties or the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund."

Facing potential political fallout and frustrated by three weeks of failed efforts to stop the huge Gulf of Mexico oil spill, Obama Wednesday sent top experts to aid BP in its battle to cap a sunken rig.

About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.Join us on Facebook:www.facebook.com/OceanicDefenseVisit our official website:www.oceanicdefense.orgFollow us on Twitter:www.twitter.com/OceanicDefense

5.10.2010

Last week residents of Concord, Massachusetts voted to ban the sale of all bottled water by next January, making it the first U.S. town to take such action.

The effort was lead by Jean Hill, an 82-year old activist, who lobbied neighbors and officials alike on the consequences of plastic bottles filling landfills and polluting local waters. "All these discarded bottles are damaging our planet, causing clumps of garbage in the oceans that hurt fish, and are creating more pollution on our streets,'' says Hil. "This is a great achievement to be the first in the country to do this. This is about addressing an injustice."

Of course, the $10 billion industry is less than thrilled with the news and has even threatened a legal challenge. They argue that singling out bottled water is unfair when "thousands of food, medicinal, beauty and cleaning products packaged in plastic." But this isn't the first time bottled water has been targeted.

More than 100 towns across the United States already prohibit spending city dollars on the product.

"We obviously don't think highly of the vote in Concord,'' said Joe Doss, president of the International Bottled Water Association, a trade association that represents bottlers, suppliers, and distributors. "Any efforts to discourage consumers from drinking water, whether tap water or bottled water, is not in the best interests of consumers. Bottled water is a very healthy, safe, convenient product that consumers use to stay hydrated.''

But bottled water is hardly safe. As the NRDC reports, water stored in plastic bottles for 10 weeks showed signs of phthalate-leaching. Phthalates block testosterone and other hormores! And keep in mind, while phthalates in tap water are regulated, no such regulations exist at all for bottled water. And as the infographic above points out, bottled water costs 10,000 times more than tap water and 40-percent of it comes straight from the tap.

The Concord ordinance is part of a statewide effort for a new bottle law. The state's 29-year-old law only allows consumers to redeem bottles and cans from soda and beer. Bottles from non-carbonated water, iced tea, juices or energy drinks--which account for one-third of all beverages sold in Massachusetts--are not redeemable. The new law would raise the redemption fee to 10 cents and cover a larger variety of beverage bottles.

About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

5.05.2010

An undersea conveyor belt to Florida is approaching the Gulf Coast oil spill, and should it stretch past its typical bounds, oil from the BP PLC accident, blobbing placidly off the Louisiana coast, could soon stream into the Florida Keys and up the United States' Eastern Seaboard.

Or the current could miss the spill entirely.

Government officials and scientists from Mississippi to Florida are holding their collective breath to see whether a strong but unpredictable current in the Gulf of Mexico, known as the Loop Current, will continue to expand north toward Louisiana. Two days ago -- the latest time for which satellite data are available -- the current sat 125 miles south of the spill, its rotating tendrils licking at the slick's eastern edge.

"It is a very important concern," said Bob Weisberg, an oceanographer at the University of South Florida, who has long warned of the flow's potential impact on his state. "The Loop Current is actually moving toward the oil."

For the current to begin conveying the oil at any volume, it would still have to surge much farther north, which some computer models like Weisberg's are predicting. However, as Weisberg confesses, many of these models are deeply flawed, and the behavior of the Loop Current -- when it will decide to surge or instead break apart -- is prohibitively complex to forecast.

In other words, "no one has really been able to predict with much accuracy what the Loop Current will do," said Nan Walker, the director of the Earth Scan Laboratory at Louisiana State University, who is monitoring the oil and current with several sets of satellite data.

The worst-case scenarios have been concerning enough for communities in Florida ranging from Tampa Bay to Key West to begin mobilizing contingency plans. Should the current reach the spill, oil would begin to flow down past Florida's western coast, which would be largely spared due to its wide coastal shelf, and into the Florida Strait. There, the chemical dispersants used to break up the oil could turn on vulnerable wildlife.

"The dispersants could kill corals," Walker said. "Obviously, oil is not going to be good for corals. That is probably one of the biggest concerns if [the oil] was entrained."

But this devastation is far from a sure bet, scientists say.

The Loop Current runs from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Florida Strait, where it eventually feeds the Gulf Stream. Often, the current lies low in the latitudes, barely extending into the Gulf of Mexico. But then, in erratic but frequent intervals, the current plunges deep up into the Gulf's eastern waters, like a sharp elbow extending from Cuba into the gut of Louisiana.

Without fail, however, the current cannot sustain this intrusion, and the current's northernmost reaches break apart. Small currents, known as eddies or ring separations, begin rotating toward the west, against the current's flow. And eventually, the whole top of the current breaks apart and floats west toward Texas.

The current "usually grows and eventually runs out of room," said Villy Kourafalou, a Gulf of Mexico modeler at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School. "The whole top of the Loop Current gets disconnected."

When this will happen to the present iteration of the current is nearly impossible to say, though scientists hope it will shed its top before approaching the oil spill. The current's lifetime can run from a half-year to almost 18 months, showing little seasonal variability. When and why the separation occurs is an area of very active research, Kourafalou said.

Even satellite imagery of the current, which can run up to 1,000 meters deep, is difficult to compile. It takes a week of data to get an accurate picture, said Tony Sturges, an oceanographer at Florida State University. Sturges, one of the foremost experts on the current, is concerned that oil could sluice down to Miami.

But "do I have any idea whether it will come to pass?" he said. "Not a clue."

No prediction system

Weisberg has been using several models to attempt to predict the Loop Current, hoping their various flaws will average out, much as is done with hurricane prediction. Those models indicate the current is moving toward the oil, but Weisberg can't say for certain when or if the current will hit.

More likely, but still uncertain, is that small eddies could swirl off the current and entrain at least a small amount of oil, Walker said. These currents are generally weak; some are already helping to both push the oil toward the shore and draw some of it toward the east. How much oil could circulate this way is difficult to say.

The prevailing winds on the Gulf Coast, which typically run from east to west, are likely to begin blowing instead toward Florida. Some of the oil will go toward Louisiana beaches and marshes, and some will push farther east, though with all the complex currents running in the area, long-term predictions are tough, Walker said, though there is one certainty.

"This oil spill is going to be around for a while, I'm afraid," she said.

There is some precedence for the conveyor belt action of the Loop Current. In the 1990s, the current transported floodwaters flush with nutrients out of the Mississippi Delta all the way to eastern Florida. But instances when the current comes so close are rare, Walker said.

It is also far from certain that the current would provide a straight shot to the Florida Keys. In particular, Kourafalou is eyeing a large vortex down the current's path east that could delay the oil or even pitch it off. Or, she added, the oil could miss it entirely and flow like a "flume" eastward.

If the worst comes to pass, Florida's eastern shores would be particularly vulnerable, she added. The narrow shelf of the Florida Keys could cause the current to break apart, delivering oil and dispersants to the shore. Unlike the state's west, the Atlantic shore lies close to deep water and the Florida Current, which the Loop Current feeds.

Everglades researchers are already expressing fear that the oil could run into Florida Bay and potentially devastate its fisheries, sea grasses and shallows. More water evaporates from the bay than flows into it from the Everglades this time of year, creating a sink-like effect that leaves the delicate ecosystem at some risk of attracting oil flows, said James Fourqurean, a sea-grass ecologist at Florida International University.

"That means, then, that if a surface slick runs down very close to shore along the southern tip of the peninsula, that slick could be pulled into Florida Bay and remain resident there for a number of years," he said.

While the fate of the Everglades remains to be seen, Kourafalou finds it shameful that the government and oil companies have not been better prepared and committed the money to get a full-fledged, accurate prediction system operating for the Gulf, she said.

"It's amazing that there's no prediction system in place for the Gulf of Mexico," she said. "It should be in real time. It should be ready."

About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.Join us on Facebook:www.facebook.com/OceanicDefenseVisit our official website:www.oceanicdefense.orgFollow us on Twitter:www.twitter.com/OceanicDefense

“This spill spells disaster for birds in this region and beyond,” said ABC President George Fenwick. “It is ironic that next weekend is International Migratory Bird Day. At a time when we should be celebrating the beauty and wonder of migratory birds, we could be mourning the worst environmental disaster in recent U.S. history.”

The Gulf Coast is extremely important for hundreds of species of migrants, which variously breed, winter and rest here during migration. The population effects on birds from this spill will be felt as far north as Canada and Alaska and as far south as South America.

The complexity of the Gulf coastline, with numerous bays, estuaries, inlets, marshes and creeks, will make cleanup extremely difficult; impacts could last for decades for much of the habitat, and some species may suffer significant long-term population declines.

All coastal nesting species (herons, terns, skimmers, plovers, gulls, rails, ducks) are currently present on the Gulf Coast, including several species on the U.S. WatchList of birds of conservation concern. The impact to these species depends on how long the leak lasts and what happens with weather and currents. The leak could persist for weeks or months, and end up being the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

For species with long life spans and low reproductive rates (such as reddish egrets and least terns), acute mortality events such as this can have long-term population-level impacts if they affect a large proportion of the breeding population. This is because adults that survive do not produce young quickly enough for populations to recover quickly.

Species where large proportions of populations concentrate in a few, discreet locations (including species with only a few breeding colonies and species that concentrate en masse during migration stopovers) are particularly vulnerable to these events.

Compounding problems for songbirds, not normally directly affected by oil spills, is smoke billowing skywards from the burning oil that was set alight to try to minimize damage to marine life.

“Millions of our songbirds are crossing the Gulf now, and will arrive stateside perilously weak and undernourished from their journey. The smoke may well compound their precarious situation and potentially lead to birds failing to make it to shore, or arriving so weakened that they are unable to survive,” said Fenwick.

The Top Ten Sites at Most Immediate Risk from the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

Gulf Coast Least Tern Colony One of the world’s largest colonies of the threatened least tern.

Lower Pascagoula River– including the Pascagoula River Coastal Preserve The coastal marshes at the mouth of the river support yellow and black rails, snowy plovers and endangered wintering piping plovers.

Breton National Wildlife Refuge – including the Chandeleur IslandsLargest tern colony in North America, predominantly of sandwich, royal, and caspian terns. Also American oystercatcher, brown pelican, reddish egret and endangered piping plover. Also an important wintering area for magnificent frigatebird, and stopover site for redhead and lesser scaup.

Dauphin IslandAn important stopover site for migrant birds including shorebirds, gulls, terns, herons and rails.

Fort Morgan Historical Park An important stopover site for migratory birds including shorebirds, gulls, terns, herons and rails.

Bon Secour National Wildlife RefugeAn important stopover site for thousands of trans-Gulf migrants.

Eglin Air Force BaseBest known for its inland population of red-cockaded woodpeckers, Elgin also has significant coastal habitat for shorebirds and wading birds.

Delta National Wildlife RefugeLarge numbers of wading birds nest here, including white ibis, snowy egrets and herons; thousands of shorebirds use the mudflats in winter and during migration, including dunlin, long-billed dowitcher and western sandpiper as well as endangered piping plover.

Baptiste Collette Bird Islands This artificial barrier island, created from dredge spoil, is one of the many Louisiana coastal islands that could be affected. Birds found here include caspian tern, brown pelican, gull-billed tern and black skimmer.

About Oceanic DefenseWe are an international non-profit organization with members in over 60 countries, spanning 6 continents with 1 mission; healthy aquatic ecosystems free from human abuse and neglect. Oceanic Defense teaches people to protect our oceans by acting responsibly as consumers and by making smart decisions in our daily lives. Whether we are buying groceries, commuting to work, planning a vacation or advocating within our own communities; each action we take or decision we make either helps or hurts our oceans. We empower people to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem and work together to protect our blue planet.

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